


Wrong shades

by 700wordsAmonth



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort/Angst, F/F, Light Angst, Mentions of Violence, One Shot, Past Abuse, past non-graphic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 19:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17028471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/700wordsAmonth/pseuds/700wordsAmonth
Summary: Waverly stood still for a moment, except for her chest, which rose and fell sharply with each shallow, quick breath. “What-” she barely enunciated. Waverly lowered her arm, still a little confused, still trying to hold onto her anger, though it was dissipating fast with Nicole’s unexpected reaction. “Nicole?”





	Wrong shades

Waverly hated arguing with Nicole. She hated that Nicole was always the calmer one, conciliatory. And hated that Nicole wasn’t able to calm her down despite that. No, Waverly needed to let her anger burn, she needed to scream and vent and break 2-dollar cups before being able to even breathe. She needed to take a walk and be alone for a while. And that meant that, no matter how the fight started, she was always the one who needed to apologize later. She was always the one who escalated a simple argument to a screaming match. Except that only one side was really screaming, and that only made her burn hotter.

 

 _“Would you just stop being so_ **_damn_ ** _rational all the_ **_damn_ ** _time and just fucking scream at me?”_ Waverly shouted at Nicole, her right arm held high behind her, palm open, expressing her frustration.

 

And Nicole flinched. Her eyes closed and her face turned, as if expecting a blow.

 

Waverly stood still for a moment, except for her chest, which rose and fell sharply with each shallow, quick breath. “What-” she barely enunciated. Waverly lowered her arm, still a little confused, still trying to hold onto her anger, though it was dissipating fast with Nicole’s unexpected reaction. “Nicole?”

 

Nicole turned her face back toward Waverly's voice, but her cheeks were tinted a deep red and her eyes wouldn’t meet Waverly’s. Not when she said her name. Not when she took a step closer.

 

“Baby?” Waverly started, and she could feel the frown heavy on her face as her confusion gave place to incredulity. “You thought I was going to hit you?”

 

Nicole’s eyes met hers for less than a second before escaping again, her whole body turning and searching for something to do, clearly avoiding eye contact. “No, of course not. It was just a reflex.”

 

Something squeezed painfully inside Waverly’s chest, made it hard to breathe. She wasn't sure if it was her heart or her lungs. Waverly ached to go to Nicole and stop her and make her look at her. But she’d never seen Nicole make herself so small, gravitating to the corners of the room to protect herself, to keep herself farther away.

 

“Baby,” she took a step closer, but Nicole turned her head to the side, her arms crossed over each other in front of her chest, so Waverly stopped. “Baby, you thought I was going to hit you-” Nicole didn’t move, but Waverly could see her throat swallowing- “Has anybody ever hit you?”

 

“I’m a cop and this is Purgatory, of course I’ve been hit before, Waverly.”

 

“That’s not what I meant. I mean-” Waverly’s heartbeat rose again, faster than it was when they were fighting. She felt scared, powerless- “have your parents or a friend, a girlfriend-” her voice cracked- “ever hit you?”

 

She could see Nicole’s throat working again, her cheeks were still a dark pink, and her eyes were not yet meeting hers, but trying.

 

“A little.”

 

Suddenly there were tears running down Waverly’s cheeks. She hadn’t even noticed she wanted to cry.

 

“A little?”

 

“Yea, a girl-” Nicole’s eyes, little by little, raised to meet Waverly’s, holding the contact for longer the longer Nicole spoke- “a girlfriend. But it wasn’t- It was just slaps. I wouldn’t even get, you know, bruised or anything. It just stung a little,” she said as the tips of her fingers reached her left cheekbone, right under her eye. “She didn’t… I don’t know, it’s not as if she’d-”

 

“Hurt you?” Waverly asked as she moved closer to her girlfriend.

 

A few tears escaped Nicole’s eyes then, but she shrugged.

 

“She was small, a lot smaller than me. I wasn’t defenceless… you know? I could have…”

 

Waverly cradled Nicole’s burning cheeks in her hands and searched her eyes. “You know that that doesn’t matter, right? That she was smaller than you. That’s- that’s still abuse, Nicole.”

 

“But I could have stopped her.” Her eyes finally settled on Waverly's, searching. “Why didn’t I stop her?” Nicole asked, her voice made small from pushing past the lump in her throat. 

 

“There’s more to being able to defend yourself than just the physical ability to do so, baby.” Waverly traced Nicole’s cheeks, “and you know you have nothing to be ashamed of, right?”

 

Nicole’s eyes left Waverly’s again, “yea, it just- it feels like I do, though.”

 

“That’s alright,” Waverly rested her forehead on Nicole’s, “we can work on that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many months ago I saw a prompt for this situation: if during an argument one of them raised their hand gesticulating and the other flinched. At the time the writer who took the prompt had Waverly be the one who flinched, but I always headcanonned the other way around, so I decided to, now, 74 years later, try my hand with it.
> 
> Also I'm sorry for just realizing how rude this was of me, taking someone else's prompt/fic and doing my version without linking the original fic. I don't have a great memory, so, if anyone knows which fic I'm talking about, please let me know so I can link it here. Again, I'm so sorry.


End file.
